Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-01-31
BUCKET-SHOPS CAN BE SPARED.

Pathetic appeals are going up to the
Legislature in behalf of the "bucket-
shop" system. These appeals do not
come from the rank and file of the peo-
pie, but from the towns where bucket
shops are in existence. With almost as
much propriety, petitions might be sent
in asking for repeal OF the laws against
gambling. Divested of its semi-respect-
able mask, the bucktt-shop is after all
nothing more or less than 8 gambling
house. The men who risk their money in
the bncket-shop operations are gambling,
just as much as the men who bet at faro,
monte or any other game or device of
chance. When men at a race-course
wager money on the speed and endurance
of horse there is some basis for the
risk, for there is something tangible on
which to form an estimate. The record
made by horse in previous races, his
Duild, his movements, are all matters of
Judgment, and can all be taken into &C
count. Betting on horse race, how
ever, is considered, and, we dare say
properly, as species of gambling. In
bucket-shop operations it is all chance;
the operators judgment is in no wise q
factor in the outcome, and he who in
vests risks his money full as recklessly as
the man who puts up money on the turn
of q Hor O a n q
or of fact should the bucket shop be put
on higher plane than the faro room
and given a certificate of responsibility?
The GAZETTE disclaims any prejudice
against the bucket-hhop system, but must
enter protest against the plea that the
system has any right to be classed as a
legitimate business, and es part and par
Gel of the business system of the coun-
try. There is not legitimate business
interest that will suffer because of the
suppression of bocket-shops, but there
are q great many business men who
would be better off With the
institutions closed. As long as
they exist they will offer temptations to
men who have not the means to take the
risks that must of necessity be encoun-
tered in the buying or selling of futures.
They wean men away from the safe, con-
sentative methods of making money and
doing business. In every town where
there is bucket-shop there may be found
men who, not content with time-honored
business methods, have taken money that
should have been used in their business,
risked it in futures ard lost: This is the
key to q large percentage of the failures and
business wrecks thatHre occurring all the
time. The game, like faro, is fascinating.
If the operator is successful in his first
venture he keeps on, and inevitably there
luck. If he loses at the outset, there is
the hope of retrieving by the next venture,
and in either event it is ultimate mis-
fortune for seven out of ten oper-
ators. The system is pernicious,
and there is not the semblsnce
of sound, valid excuse for its continu-
ance. It is heartily :detested, by class
who constitute tie bone and sinew 1--WE
mean the fsrhers) of the country. They
believe, and all the logic of bucket-shop
advocates cannot convince them to the
contrary, that dealing in futures has
tendency to interfere with the just values
of farm products. If there were no other
grounds on which to oppose the bucket
shop, the dread and disgust Of the farmers
for the system would be sufficient argu-